The following article first appeared in Sierra Magazine
(November/December 1998)
The U.S. Bureau of Land Management has a new mission. In conjunction with the World Golf Foundation's "First Tee" program, intended to make golf more accessible to inner-city youth, the BLM is offering to give away public land to "help bring one of the most wholesome, character-building outdoor recreation activities to a more diverse America in a fashion that is environmentally friendly."
First Tee's goal is to create 100 new golf courses by the year 2000. It's looking for cheap land-and the BLM controls more free real estate than any other federal agency. Over the years, it has given land to local governments and nonprofit organizations for parks, campgrounds, schools, and hospitals and now some 40 golf facilities, allowing the BLM to dub itself "one of the most golf-friendly federal agencies in the nation."
Hord Tipton, eastern-states chief for the BLM, insists that the Bureau isn't going out looking for places to put new golf courses. "We'll only respond when a community expresses a need, and then insist that it be developed correctly, for the greater public benefit," he says. "The fact is, they're going to build them anyway, so [putting golf courses on public property] makes sure that it's done in an environmentally responsible way." Unfortunately, most of the BLM golf course proposals are for arid places like Phoenix and Las Vegas, which are already saturated with exclusive, water-guzzling links.
"The only new golf courses we're willing to even entertain as appropriate are those on seriously degraded sites, like old quarries, land-fills, or mines," says Sierra Club California lobbyist Mark Massara. Better yet, the United States already has more than 16,000 golf courses - why not persuade them to open their fairways to a new generation of duffers?
- David Darlington
Scott Silver, Executive Director,
Wild Wilderness
248 NW Wilmington Avenue, Bend OR 97701
Phone (541) 385-5261 E-mail: ssilver@wildwilderness.org